Ectober 2014
by Elle Aitch
Summary: One-shot for this year's Ectober. Today's theme: Haunted House. Based loosely off the Medium AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, and this idea is based loosely on the Medium AU from tumblr and particularly the ideas from this post. Check it out here (just take out the spaces): ectoimp. tumblr post/81960969030/woo-pic-ive-been-working-on-but-i-manage-to-get  
><strong>

**One**

The blue eyed, black hair baby smiled at the red haired woman, laughing as she disappeared over and over again behind her fingers. A little red headed girl scowled, telling her mom that peekaboo was silly and that it was probably making her brother stupid, and for a moment the game stopped.

Or so they thought, until the blue eyed baby looked to the side and started giggling and covering his eyes, peeking sheepishly out from between his fingers every few seconds.

"Is Danny broken?" the little girl asked as she tugged at her headband.

"Of course not," laughed the woman, but silently she wondered what had her child in such hysterics, for she could not see the blue skinned, hooded figure with gleaming red eyes that continued playing peek-a-boo with Danny by disappearing and reappearing beside him.

**Two**

The toddler woke in the middle of the night, screaming and sobbing loudly. The dark haired man sighed, running his hand over his eyes and glancing at his wife, who blinked back at him in the semi-darkness.

"It's fine, Mads," he said. "I'll handle it this time."

Groaning, he slowly got out of bed to check on his son. They thought they'd long since passed the stage where their youngest child would keep them up all night, but for the past few weeks the boy had been having nightmares, babbling about a green, robot monster with flames for hair.

By the time he got there, the crying had become sniffles. Peeking into his son's room, he saw his daughter sitting beside her baby brother, rubbing his back gently as she hugged him with one arm and Bearbert with the other.

"It's okay, Danny. You can stay in my room if you want. I promise there are no monsters. Daddy made me a light that keeps them away," she whispered. "Maybe he can make you one, too."

**Three**

Danny laughed as he chased around nothing, but Maddie did her best not to worry about it. Imaginary friends were normal. Her son's imagination was just a little . . . darker than most, what with his friend being a skeletal, shape-shifting parrot and a green-haired pale skinned boy that he called Youngblood.

He would grow out of it. Surely other children clung to their imaginary friends for more than a couple of months.

"You can be the pirate this time, and I'll be, um, Peter Pan. Maybe we can get Jazz to play Wendy!" A pause, and then he looked at his feet. "Yeah, I know. She hates playing pretend. All she ever wants to do is read."

Maddie frowned. She knew that Jazz starting school had hit Danny hard since Jazz wasn't around to play with him anymore, and even when her daughter was home she tended to prefer reading to playing pretend. Maybe she could arrange a play date for him. She'd heard a new family moved in down the street, with a young boy about Danny's age. It would be good for him to have a real friend.

Because even though she knew that imaginary friends were normal, she couldn't shake the chill that ran down her spine when she watched Danny playing with them.

**Four**

The light couldn't keep the monsters away. It didn't work like Jazz's did. He tapped it angrily. It used to work. He was _sure_ it used to work.

_Please, child . . . make a wish . . ._

"No," he mumbled stubbornly, covering his ears and closing his eyes as he curled up in a ball on the floor, determined not to look at the creepy specter. He didn't want to be scared. He didn't want to cry.

All he wanted was for the creatures that haunted him to disappear.

**Five**

"He collapsed?" It was Danny's first day of kindergarten, and Maddie had already been a nervous flutter despite having gone through this with Jazz just a couple of years ago. Jack had her working on their portal designs to distract her from it, but the instant the phone rang and she saw it was the school she felt her heart stop.

"He . . . he started screaming. Crying. Said that someone was trying to, um, hurt him, but none of the other kids were even touching him," the nurse said slowly over the phone, and Maddie could faintly hear Danny in the background laughing now. It was hard to imagine him crying mere moments ago. "He ended up passing out. He's in my office now, with Tucker. He seems to be doing okay, but you should probably pick him up. Sometimes the first few days of school can be tough for some kids."

**Six**

An investigation by social services turned up nothing. Their lab was kept neat, locked, and was strictly off-limits to the children without supervision, and despite the odd nature of the Fentons' work, they kept the supernatural nature of their careers secret from their children. Danny had no visible bruises anywhere, no sign of injury or abuse. Said he loved his parents, and clearly meant it. Cried and said he'd stop being scared all the time, that school and the kids there just made him nervous and that he watched too many scary movies at an unnamed friend's house.

The case worker advised having Danny see a psychologist. "It might get him to open up and to find out what the real problem might be. He might have some underlying disorder or condition that we're not aware of."

But Danny wouldn't talk to a therapist. He would sit in the room, quietly letting his legs swing and keeping his eyes locked to the floor or to whatever board game the therapist took out to try to break the ice with him a bit.

"Maybe I should be his therapist," said Jazz, overhearing her parents talking about cancelling Danny's sessions after spending so much money and showing little to no progress. "I could do it for free."

"Honey, you don't know anything about psychology," said Maddie, but when she saw the heartbroken look on her daughter's face she knelt down in front of her and smiled. "But that doesn't mean you can't talk to him and try to cheer him up."

"I know I can do that. I just want to do it better," said Jazz. "He's got like no friends. He's scared all the time. He can't even get through a week in school without going to the nurse or the guidance counselor."

"It'll be okay, sweetie. Sometimes . . . sometimes, things are just harder for some of kids to deal with. Danny will be okay," she said, biting her lip and forcing a smile, and she knew she sounded more like she was trying to reassure herself rather than Jazz.

Outside the room Danny stood frozen in the hallway, his eyes locked on the creepy green octopus hovering in the air nearby, but after hearing how upset his parents were about him getting scared all the time he was determined to be braver. He wouldn't collapse again. He wouldn't keep away from everyone out of fear that they'd see how crazy he was. He wouldn't talk about the monsters anymore.

But as the octopus lashed out at him Danny flinched. Ducking down low and hugging his knees, he silently wished over and over again that he could be normal, that he could just stop seeing these terrible creatures all the time.

**Seven**

"Ghosts?"

"That's right, sweetie. That's, um, what we actually do for a living," his mother patiently explained after he'd asked her if she wanted to come to school and talk about her job. He just thought they were inventors. "Your father and I-hard as it was for him-didn't want to tell you exactly what we were doing because we were worried you'd be scared. You have no idea how hard it was for Jack not to say a word about ghosts to you," she laughed, but despite the easy look she wore she was clearly troubled. The main reason they'd kept silent about the ghosts was because of Danny's claims about seeing monsters all the time. He hadn't mentioned seeing one in months now, but she still worried about it whenever his eyes seemed to track something that wasn't there.

"So you're like those guys from that movie?"

"Well . . . not really. Ghosts can't manifest themselves on the physical plane for very long, and they pose little to no threat most of the time. We mostly study them."

"Then why are you making weapons?"

"Because we're working on making a gateway to their world, Danny," she said, her eyes lighting up. "And they may be far more dangerous in the ghost zone than they are when they manifest in our world. We need to be prepared for anything so that you kids and no one else gets hurt."

"Have you ever . . . have you ever seen a ghost?" he asked after a long moment, and there was an odd air to the question.

"No. We have some EVPs, EMFs, and temperature readings from our investigations in the past that suggest the presence of ectoplasmic entities, but we've never actually seen one. There are those in the field who claim that only mediums can see and communicate with them, but despite a lot of people claiming to have the ability, it's not something that's ever been definitively proven. To date the only mediums we've encountered have been frauds, or they've made claims that have been impossible for us to objectively verify."

"Oh." His shoulders slumped as he hugged himself a little tighter.

"That doesn't mean that mediums or ghosts don't exist," said Maddie, noticing her son's sudden disappointment, and she tilted her head curiously. "Why? Do you think that you've seen a ghost?"

Danny hesitated slightly as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I-it's just-maybe the mons-"

"Mads, look!" shouted Jack, barreling into the room. "I finally got the-" Suddenly he paused, noticing his son, and he chuckled uneasily. "Oh, heya, Danny. What's going on?"

"Danny's school is having a career day," explained Maddie. "So I finally told him about everything we do."

"So you mean I can finally blather on about ghosts to the kids?" Jack grinned as he pulled Danny and Maddie into a warm hug. "This'll be great! We'll start teaching you all about spooks, son, and then eventually you can come on an investigation with us! Maybe we'll finally get our chance to tear some ghosts apart molecule by molecule!"

**Eight**

"Stay here," Danny whispered as he heard his parent's footsteps echoing on the stairs. The pale, blue skinned girl with bright red eyes nodded, curling up into a ball and hiding her face in terror as Danny quietly shut the closet door.

"I found some cold spots up here earlier," said Maddie, her eyes locked on the EMF.

"Well, this is supposed to be the floor where it happened," said Jack, frowning when he spotted Danny. "Son? I thought you were going to wait with Jazz."

"I was looking for a bathroom," said Danny softly, eyes locked to the floor as he bounced uneasily on the balls of his feet. "I, um . . . can you help me find one?"

"Sure, honey," agreed Maddie as she reached out and took Danny's hand. "You keep looking, Jack. We should just be a minute."

"Wait!" Danny tugged his hand away, glancing back at his father who was getting ever closer to the closet that the little ghost girl was hiding inside. He didn't think his parents could see her-they could never see the ghosts-but what if he was wrong? What if they captured her and dissected her? Danny didn't want that to happen. It had been a long time since he'd met a ghost that didn't threaten to skin him alive.

"Um . . ."

"Yes, Danny?"

"I-there was-I think there was a ghost in the kitchen downstairs!" he squeaked. "I heard some weird sounds, and, um, it was really cold for a minute . . ."

Jack and Maddie glanced at each other for a moment, the unspoken meaning in their gazes clear to the other. "Well, then, son," said Jack as he took Danny's hand, his smile never faltering, "let's go check it out. I'll show you how to take real temperature readings, too."

"O-okay!" He followed them down the stairs, throwing only one brief look back at the closet as his dad chattered on excitedly about what kind of ghost Danny might have encountered.

He might not care if his parents managed to hurt most of the ghosts that scared him, but he wouldn't let them anywhere near Lila. He promised he'd protect her, and he wanted to keep his promises.

**Nine**

Danny stared in awe at the stars. He'd never seen so many in his life, the light pollution in Amity Park being what it was, but out here at his Aunt Alicia's cabin the night sky was brilliant.

"Seems like space might be a nice place to go, huh, little brother?" said Jazz, who was hoping to spot a meteor. "I bet there's no ghosts up there. And no crazy ghost-hunting parents, either."

"I thought you didn't believe in ghosts," Danny mumbled as he picked at the grass at his feet. He didn't like talking about ghosts with Jazz. She thought their parents were crazy, but Danny knew better.

"There's no proof. EMFs, EVPs . . . that stuff is all just fake," she sighed, pushing a long strand of hair behind her ear. "I love mom and dad, but don't you think it'd be cool to have normal parents that weren't obsessed with ghosts?"

"I don't know," he mumbled. "Bet you want a normal brother, too. Not a crazy one like me."

Danny stared at the ground, wishing he hadn't said anything. He didn't mean to pick fights with Jazz. It just always sort of happened.

But Jazz didn't rise to the occasion or fight him like he expected. Instead, she reached out and touched his hand sympathetically as her gaze drifted from the starry sky to her consistently depressed little brother. "This is about Dash calling you a freak again, isn't it?"

"No," he lied, pulling his hand away and glaring into the dark woods. "And I'm not a freak."

"I never said you were, Danny."

_But you never said I wasn't, _he thought, but this time he didn't push it. Instead, he looked back up at the sky. "It would be sort of cool to be an astronaut."

"I bet you could do it," said Jazz, welcoming the change in conversation. "You're smart, little bro. And brave."

"And I'm not scared of heights," he added, but it was the thought of no ghosts in outer space that really made the idea start to take hold.

**Ten**

Danny's jaw dropped when Sam walked into class on the first day of school. The purple streak in her dark hair, the plaid skirt and black t-shirt with Jack Skellington on it, the spider back-pack . . . it was completely different from the Sam he'd spent his summers with before, the Sam that wore frilly pink dresses but still didn't care about getting scraped knees and dirt under her nails.

He wasn't he only one staring, either. "What-she-is she . . .?"

"My mom finally let me pick out my own clothes this year," she said, grinning as she took the empty seat in front of Danny. "I like dark clothes. And spiders. Spiders are cool."

"No offense, but you look kind of scary," said Tucker.

"That's the idea," she laughed. "If you're gonna start learning about and investigating dark spooky stuff, you gotta be the scariest thing in the dark. Plus my mom hates it."

"What kinda stuff do you want to investigate?" asked Danny curiously, trying his hardest not to keep staring at his friend.

"Anything paranormal-demons, vampires, werewolves, ghosts-"

"-ghosts?" interrupted Tucker, glancing up from some new video game he'd gotten over the summer. "You know that Danny's parents are ghost hunters, right?"

"Wait, really?"

"Um . . . yeah," admitted Danny softly, his eyes locked on his desk as he started doodling some planets in the margins to avoid looking at the creepy thing in the corner that had glowing eyes that spun like stars. "But it's not as cool as you think. We spend a lot of time just in old buildings setting up stuff that measures temperatures and EMF readings and records a lot of static that my dad thinks you can hear ghost speaking through and stuff."

"You went on ghost hunts with them?" she said excitedly, and looking up, he saw her leaning in close. He'd never realized how purple her eyes were before.

"I-um . . ." he glanced in the corner, at the creature that stood there, and forced himself to ignore the goosebumps that crawled up his skin. "Yeah."

"Did you ever see a ghost?"

Danny opened his mouth, then closed it as he took a second to consider whether he ought to tell his friends the truth. He'd never told his parents, not since he was a kid and they thought he was just hallucinating. He'd never told his sister, nor the therapist that he'd been stuck seeing for years. His parents had said it themselves, after all: there was no way to prove he was seeing ghosts. If he told them the truth, then at best they'd believe him and probably start dragging him on ghosts hunts.

And at worst . . . at worst they'd spend their time secretly trying to prove he was a fraud, or they'd say he was crazy and he'd get locked up in a looney bin or something.

"Danny? You saw one, didn't you?" said Sam, grinning and taking his silence as confirmation.

"N-no," he stuttered at last, eyes locked on the planets he was sketching. "I never saw one. Pretty sure they're not real. Like Santa Claus and the tooth fairy."

But even as he spoke and the conversation turned to other weird stuff, Danny could feel the empty eyes of that creature watching him.

**Eleven**

"Five plus five is ten, so if I-" He paused as shiver ran through him. He knew it meant that there was a ghost nearby, but just as he turned to look back-

-he found himself standing in an alley as the moon shone brilliantly above. Looking down he found a knife in his hand, with a few gleaming drops of blood.

For a moment he freaked out and dropped it until he realized that it was _his _hand that has been bleeding. A series of thin cuts run across his left wrist, and even though he couldn't see it anywhere he could tell that there was a ghost nearby.

Grabbing the knife and wrapping up his wrist as tightly as he could, he ran from the alley. His heart beat rapidly in his chest. In all the years that he's seen ghosts, in all the times that the creepy specters have attacked him and hurt him, he'd never been possessed. He'd never had his body taken over, his own hands . . .

Danny tried not to think about it too much. Finally making it home, he breathed a small sigh of relief when he saw the lights were still out. If his parents had actually noticed he was missing, then he didn't doubt he'd see the lights on in the living room or the kitchen as they paced, worried and angry and wondering why he'd run off.

Still, he was quiet as he opened the front door and crept upstairs to the bathroom to clean the cuts. Even though the wounds looked scary in the alley, the cuts were shallow and had already stopped bleeding.

He spent the night sitting up in bed with a flashlight resting on his knees, trembling and wishing not for the first time that the night light his dad gave him as a child really could keep the ghosts away.

**Twelve**

It took Sam a while to convince Danny to come ghost hunting with her and Tucker, but it took way less time to notice that Danny had a knack for leading them away from all the hot spots. He always had some excuse-that he'd been to the house they were investigating before and he remembered that his parents had found way more activity in the kitchen than in the bedroom, or that he thought he heard something in the cupboards, or that his mom called and said they needed to get home, now, because it was a school night and what were they thinking?

Yet it didn't take long for Sam to realize that _somehow_, Danny knew exactly where the ghosts were and that he was leading them away from the ghosts on purpose. She didn't understand why he would, until Tucker told her that Danny was terrified of ghosts.

"He used to have some real intense nightmares and stuff as a kid," he explained while they were walking home together one day after Danny had left them. "His parents rarely take him on ghost hunts with them because he gets scared real easy."

"But that doesn't explain how he always knows where the ghosts are, Tuck." Sam fidgeted with the strap of her spider backpack.

"His parents have investigated just about every haunting in this city, and Danny can see their files on that stuff whenever he wants. If anyone was going to know where there might be a ghost, it would be Danny."

"I guess." Still, the explanation didn't sit well with her.

Maybe it was because of the way he always seemed to stare at something she couldn't see, or the way that he'd violently shiver and then glance over his shoulder like he was being stalked. Or how he'd seem to nod and whisper under his breath, as if talking to an invisible friend, or how he refused to talk about the supernatural at all outside of their ghost hunting expeditions. Maybe it was the way he'd get quiet when they'd start talking about mediums, or how cool it might be if they actually saw a ghost.

**Thirteen**

"Please come down from there," she urged, her voice quaking, but Danny said nothing to her as he stood perched on the edge of the railing, his t-shirt flapping slightly in the breeze.

She and Tucker tried to avoid bringing him on ghost hunts for a while, but eventually he'd gotten upset about them hanging out with him less. He mistook their desire to avoid making their friend face the ghosts that terrified him with his friends gradually abandoning him as their interests diverged, so eventually, they started inviting Danny again.

Only now Danny no longer derailed their investigations; instead, the pair specifically investigated whatever closet or dusty hall Danny meekly demanded that they avoid.

But it wasn't long before she noticed Danny acting strangely. He'd suddenly mumble something and walk in the other direction. There was the time they were investigating the ghost of a little girl who'd been killed years ago, and Danny had walked over to a wall and started mindlessly tracing a spot on it until she and Tucker forced him to leave it alone. And once in a while she'd call his name and he wouldn't respond. He'd stare right through them, as if they didn't exist.

But the time that Danny got hurt, there were no signs. One minute everything was fine, and he was smiling as he said he wanted to go check out something on the second floor.

And the next she was upstairs, kneeling beside Tucker who had a nasty gash on his head while staring at Danny as he perched on a balcony railing.

"Come on, Danny," she pleaded. "Tucker's hurt. We need to get him to a hospital."

For one brief moment she thought she reached him. He slowly turned his head and stared at her for a moment, and his blue eyes gleamed like a cat's in the semi-darkness. "Danny?"

But he said nothing as he turned away from her and glanced briefly up at the stars before stepping off the balcony railing and plunging two stories.

He survived, but his left leg was shattered so badly that it took him months to recover. Tucker had needed four or five stitches in his head from the deep cut that he received that night, and barely spoke for days. Sam lied about what happened, saying that Danny had gotten scared and run off the balcony by mistake, that he accidentally nudged Tucker over into something sharp as he ran for what he thought was the stairs.

She didn't say that Danny was the one that attacked Tucker, or that he'd jumped.

Because in one of the few moments when Danny finally had a chance to speak to them alone, he told them the truth. That he could see ghosts. That he could speak with them.

That some of the ghosts, especially the ones that haunted specific places, hated him and tried to kill him because they felt like he was intruding on their territory. That because they struggled to influence the physical plane directly, they'd often possess him instead and make him hurt himself or try to get him to hurt his friends. That he didn't always remember what happened, but that sometimes he was glad because usually remembering what he'd done just made it worse.

Sam scolded him and told him he should've said something sooner, that they'd never have gone ghost hunting if they'd known. But Danny just shrugged, mumbling a small "I'm sorry" as he absentmindedly picked at the cast on his leg. He didn't think that they'd believe him.

Sam and Tucker never wanted to hunt ghosts again.

**Fourteen**

His dad's shoulder slumped as the portal failed to so much as flicker. After years of research and development, their "greatest" invention was an utter failure.

Until Danny stepped inside and hit the on switch, providing the much needed connection between the world of the living and the world of the dead to ignite that first spark that made the portal explode with green light as it transformed the boy into something half human and half ghost.

**A/N: So . . . been a long time. Couple years now, I think? I dunno. **

**I can't promise that I'm gonna stick around, or that I'll be finishing my stories that are in process. A couple of those stories have about a zero percent chance of being completed, and I'll likely mark those on my page to indicate that for the handful of people who might still be interested. Some of the others . . . well, we'll see. There's at least one I'd like to finish, primarily because I know I've gotten more than a few requests to do so and I feel pretty terrible about not completing it.**

**In any case, lemme know what you think. My writing's a bit rough again because I'm horribly out of practice, and I struggled with a couple of parts of this, so any concrit would be much loved and appreciated. I'd like to start writing more again, but . . . yeah. Life is crazy as hell.**


	2. Trick or Treat

**A/N: For the final day of Ectober 2014. The only other entry I managed to get completed on time. The topic is Trick or Treat, it takes place post Phantom Planet, and it's pure fluff. Enjoy!**

**Trick or Treat**

His legs swung back and forth slowly as he sat on the park bench, his arms wrapped around the pumpkin shaped bucket. The last rays of sunlight stained the sky pink and orange, and as the fall chill began to set in he was grateful his ice powers had mostly made him immune to the cold, or else his costume would have made it a tough night.

Distantly he heard the clock in the center of town ring once as it hit quarter past six. "She was supposed to be here almost an hour ago," he mumbled worriedly, but just as the words passed his lips a shiver ran down his spine, his breath fogging the air in front of him.

"You really did it!" shrieked Dani as she flew down to greet him, shifting into the visible plane and giving him a warm hug. "I thought for sure you wouldn't wear the costume I picked 'cause of the tights and all."

"I've spent most of puberty flying around in a skin tight jumpsuit," said Danny, grinning slightly as he stood up. "And you've seen my parents. Dressing up as Peter Pan to take you around trick-or-treating doesn't even come close to embarrassing-even if it does mean I'm stuck wearing tights."

"Which is why you wanted to meet up at the park and not at your house or at Sam's," teased Danielle.

"Actually, I suggested the park because we haven't really done the whole formally introduce you to my parents thing and because Sam and Tucker still think that you're my cousin."

"They don't need to know about me," she shrugged, and Danny dropped it, not willing to press the issue right now. "You ready to see my costume? I was running late 'cause I ended up running into the Box Ghost and he ripped part of my skirt before I could transform so I had to fix it real quick and stuff."

"I'd say I'd make sure to give him a good smack down for it once I see him, but I bet you got that covered," said Danny as he put the pumpkin bucket down and pulled slightly at the tights. While he wasn't terribly embarrassed to be dressed in a goofy green tights, that didn't mean it was comfortable. "So come on, let's see it. You're gonna miss out on all the good candy if you don't."

Two bright, white rings appeared. The white hair, green eyes and jumpsuit vanished, replaced by a girl wearing a short, bobbed blond wig, a pair of giant, delicate fairy wings and a short green dress. Her skin was covered in glitter, and she gave a some twirl, the tiny bells hidden inside the white poofballs on her ballet shoes jingling slightly. "Whaddya think?"

"That your costume looks ridiculously awesome compared to my dollar store one," Holding out the candy bucket, he stood up and stretched a little. "Ready to go trick or treating for the first time?"

"Yup!"

"Cool. Now the part of town we want to start in is over by where Paulina and Dash live 'cause that's where all the rich people are. Their parents always give out awesome candy-like full size bars and everything . . ."

They were sitting quietly on a rooftop a few hours later as they dug through the bucket, sorting through and pulling out a few of the better pieces. Although Danielle protested against Danny stealing her candy at first, she ultimately caved and let him have a few for walking around with her.

"That little girl is going to be telling all of her friends about you, you know," said Danny, breaking the silence as he pulled out a couple of mini snickers bars. "That she saw the real life Tinkerbell and that she could really fly."

Dani grinned. "Yeah, and you weren't too shabby as Peter Pan, either. Too bad Youngblood couldn't show up and pretend to be Captain Hook or something. We could've used a few pirates to fight to really sell it."

"When did you even see Peter Pan, anyway?" asked Danny curiously. The suggestions for the costume had been her idea, something she'd insisted on after nervously asking him if he'd be willing to take her trick-or-treating since she'd never been before and really, really wanted to go before people thought she was too old.

"A couple of months ago." She took a bite out of a Kit Kat. "It was sort of cheesy, but I really liked it. And then I watched Hook, too, and some of the newer movies and stuff, and then I saw the play and, um, well . . . I just . . . like it. Is that weird?"

"Nope. Just surprised you managed to find time while you were on the road and hiding out in the Ghost Zone." Danny bit his lip slightly as he turned the snickers over in his hands. He stared down at the gleaming package, carefully choosing his next words as he ripped the candy wrapper open. "Listen . . . I know that you're probably nervous about what my parents might think about you, especially when they realize that you're, um, my clone. But I sort of . . . I sort of spend a lot of time worrying about you, Dani. I know that you're tough and that you're smart and you've been on the run for a long time, but maybe . . . maybe you don't have to be on the run anymore. Maybe you could come live with me and Jazz and my parents. I know it might be weird at first, but I'd feel a lot better knowing you were safe, and I know that my parents would accept you. Please, Dani? At least think about it. It could mean that you could have a normal life. That you could have friends. A family. That you wouldn't have to be in danger all the time. It'd mean a lot to me if you'd at least try it for a while."

Dani was silent, her hand tightly clutching her bucket in one hand and a half-eaten Kit Kat in the other. For a moment Danny was worried she'd turn invisible and flee, especially when she looked away from him and her shoulders started to shake.

"Dani? Please say something."

Looking back, Dani smiled at him as tears streamed down his face, and much to his surprise she actually giggled a little. "You're too late, you know."

"What?"

"I sort of . . . I sort of thought the same thing. That I wanted a place to live, a place to stay. I never really wanted to be on the run all the time, but I was scared about what Vlad would do if he ever caught me, and now that he's gone I feel like I don't need to worry about it anymore. And much as I'm happy you offered, Danny, I think I want to live somewhere and with someone that I can, I don't know, be myself around. That will see me as a different person and not just as your clone," she explained. "So I may have sort of already moved in with someone about a week ago."

Danny blinked at her. "Who?"

"Who do you think, dummy?" she said.

His eyes widened as it dawned on him, and he almost dropped his candy. "Wait, you mean-you mean Valerie, don't you? You're living with Val? But-but how? Her dad-"

"-has a much better job now than he did a couple of years ago," said Dani. "And she offered. She found me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I wanted to, so, um, I kind of said yes. I was going to tell you tonight, but I was nervous you'd be upset or something since I didn't talk to you about it first."

"Are you kidding?" Danny grinned as he threw an arm around her. "That's awesome! Val's great. I mean, I know things between Val and I are still sort of tense 'cause of the whole secret thing, but she's a good person and so is her dad. But what are they going to do about your, um, lack of a legal identity and stuff?"

"Let's just say that the less you know about that, the better, but we have it worked out. I might even get to start school in a few weeks. You'll be stuck seeing me practically everyday."

"That sounds absolutely terrible," said Danny sarcastically.

"Oh, it'll be the worst." She smiled as she stood up and stretched. "It's getting sort of late. I should get going."

"Curfew?"

"Yup. It's awesome." Two silver rings appeared as she transformed into her alter ego, and for a brief moment she paused before turning and throwing her arms around him.

"Thanks for taking me trick-or-treating tonight, Danny," she whispered.

"Anytime, cuz."


End file.
